Posts

Steven Croft

An Easter Jubliate

Matins on Easter day is a song of joy.  Heart deep, world wide, heaven high, life long.

For forty days the Church has fasted.  We have denied ourselves the Alleluia and the Gloria.

We have walked the way of the cross.  We have journeyed through Holy Week.  We shared the foot washing and the agony in the garden.  We witnessed the trial, waited by the cross and watched the body of Jesus laid in the tomb.

And now it is Easter Day.  The stone has been rolled away.  The grave clothes are folded and no longer needed. Christ is risen.  He has appeared to Mary.  A new gardener in Eden.  He is walking the Emmaus Road as a shepherd, bringing home the lost. He will break bread and cook fish on charcoal in the early morning, spreading a table for his friends.  He will enter rooms full of fear and breathe new life and power.  He will gently test those who doubt him.  He will restore those who denied him.  He will interpret Scripture for his friends. He will commission them to go and make disciples.  After nights of desolation, he will give them such abundance that their nets can scarcely hold the catch.  He will forge frightened Galileeans into true fishers of people who will turn the world upside down.  He will ascend into the heights of heaven.  He will send the Comforter as he has promised.  He will never leave us.  He is here.

The Lord is risen.  The heart of the Church is breaking open with joy.   The pent up Alleluia’s overflow.  The glorias abound.  Jubilate everybody.  The whole earth is alive with song today: cathedral choirs, organ fanfares, string quartets, drums and castanets, calypso guitars, brass and woodwind.  Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

All of our hymns and songs and anthems are pure joy.  On this day we need the Easter Anthems, the Te Deum and Benedictus and then we’ve only just begun.  Even our bible readings today are songs of joy.

Miriam sings at the crossing of the Red Sea:

“I will sing to the LORD for he has triumphed gloriously”

The saints in heaven praise God for the story of salvation:

“Great and amazing are your works, Lord God the Almighty”.

We sing the Easter Anthems this day and for the fifty days of Easter:

“Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast”.

We are called this day above all days to Easter joy.  Let that joy rise within you.  Let nothing in all creation quench it or overcome it.  For the Lord is risen.  He is risen indeed.  Alleluia.

Christians are not always famous for their joy.  Pope Francis goes so far as to say this: “There are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter”[i].  It’s a striking phrase.  We project to the world and to one another a sense that we are burdened and worn down, serious and dull, too earthly minded to be any heavenly use.  Our church needs to rediscover joy.

We are too easily overwhelmed by the sorrows and troubles of the world.  There are sorrows and troubles enough this day, to be sure, as there will be tomorrow and every day of the coming year and of every year after that.  But Christian joy does not depend on everything being right with the world.

We are too easily overwhelmed by the sorrows in our own life.  There will be sorrows enough for most of us.  Sometimes they will be almost overwhelming but not quite.  Joy is not expressed in the same way at all times in life, especially in times of great difficulty.  But Christian joy does not depend on everything being perfect in our lives.

We are too easily overwhelmed by the imperfections in the Church and they are many.  But if you wait for the life of the Church of England to be completely sorted and set right you will never know a single day of joy.  For we will always be a flawed and imperfect Church like every other this side of eternity.

There is a simple lesson about joy which we are called to learn and relearn.  Christians are not called to rejoice for all circumstances.  We are called to rejoice in all circumstances.  There is a world of difference.

To rejoice for all circumstances is deeply misguided.  It leads to a forced, false joy which tries to pretend that sickness or injustice or even death are really blessings in disguise.  There are terrible things in the world and terrible things in our own lives.  We need to name them and grieve them and be angry about them.

But to rejoice in all circumstances is a very different calling.  To rejoice in all circumstances is to understand that underneath all that is difficult, all that is written in a minor key, all the sorrow and pain and grief, a stronger, major key of joy emerges and prevails.  Even in the midst of the darkest valleys we draw our strength from God in hope and joy that one day all will be well and all manner of things shall be well.  And even today, and especially today, there is a well of hope which feeds the roots of our soul and rises up to joy.

For Jesus whom we love is risen.
He offered his life for our sins
He has conquered death, never to die again
He is the new Adam.  He offers now abundant and eternal life.
He is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
He was killed with nails and wood and spear.
But death could not hold him.
Death has been conquered and Satan thrown down.
There is a river of life flowing from the cross which will fill the world and fills it still.

So sing you heavens and rejoice now all the earth.  Let the Church echo alleluias for all of this beautiful day and the fifty days which follow.

Alleluia Christ is risen. Everything has changed.  Alleluia.  Gloria.  Jubilate.  Amen.

A Sermon in Christ Church

Matins on Easter Day, 2017

[i] The Joy of the Gospel, 6

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Steven Croft
,

Gentleness

Easter Day sermon from the Bishop of Sheffield.

Acts 10.34-43 and John 20.1-18

One of the great figures of the Quaker movement, Isaac Pennington, wrote these words in a letter to his friends in 1667.  He is trying to describe what it means to be a Christian.

“Our life is love and peace and tenderness and bearing with one another and forgiving one another and not laying accusations one against one another and helping one another up with a tender hand”

To be a Christian is to live a life of gentleness and peace and tenderness and mercy and love together.

Paul writes to the Church in Philippi, “Let your gentleness be known to everyone” (Philippians 4.5).  As a community we are to be known for our tenderness.  He writes to Timothy, “Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness” (1 Timothy 6.11).

As I have read the story of the passion of Jesus in John’s gospel this year, I have been struck very powerfully by this theme of the gentleness of Jesus Christ: it is a robust gentleness, a gentleness combined with steel but gentleness none the less.

There is gentleness in the way Jesus receives the gift of Mary, the sister of Lazarus.  She anoints his feet with perfume and wipes them with her hair.  There is  gentleness in the washing of the disciples feet.  Jesus moves around the group of his closest friends to wash to cleanse, to serve.

There is gentleness in his teaching at the Passover meal.  Jesus speaks of their grief and fear, about the comforter who will come, about sorrow turning to joy.  He tells his disciples not to be afraid. He prays tenderly for them and for us.

There is gentleness combined with strength even in the terrible narrative of crucifixion: in the silence of Jesus before Pilate, in Jesus’ care for ‘his mother Mary and for the disciple whom he loved, in his final cry: “It is finished.

And the same theme of gentleness and kindness flows through the story of Jesus’ resurrection. Mary Magdalene, stands weeping, alone outside the tomb.  Jesus appears tenderly to her.  There is no bright light, no clap of thunder, nothing to distress a woman’s grief. Jesus listens and enters her sorrows through soft questions.  He tells her he is alive as he speakers her name with love and joy: “Mary”.  He gives her a new calling to share his risen life:  “Do not hold on to me….go to my brothers”.

Jesus appears gently to the disciples, in the upper room.  His first word to them is peace and his second word to them is peace, calming their fear and healing their grief.  He gives them the promised Holy Spirit but in John there is no mighty wind, no earthquake or fire.  In John, the Spirit is given through a soft breath on the forehead, almost a kiss.

Thomas is not there, of course, but there is gentleness too in the way the Lord deals with his unbelief, a tender irony, a smile, an inner joy.  And there is gentleness in the final stories by the Sea.

Jesus stands as a stranger on the shore.  “Children you have no fish have you”. He gives them instructions, he blesses their labours, and then reveals that he has been there ahead of them.  The risen Son of God makes breakfast for his friends.  He came and took the bread and gave it to them and did the same with the fish.  He is taking them back to the feeding of five thousand.

And then after breakfast Jesus deals gently with Simon Peter who at the last denied him and who is broken by grief and by failure.  Jesus restores him with his questions: “Do you love me more than these”.  To Peter also he gives  a new task: “Feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep”.

The risen Lord we celebrate today is gentle, merciful, tender and kind. His character is consistent.  It is not spoiled and made bitter by the terrible suffering he endures, by denial or betrayal.  It is not changed by his resurrection, by his new and risen life.

Before the cross, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, washes the feet of his disciples.  After the resurrection, Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, cooks breakfast for his friends.

Here is something to ponder deeply this Easter morning.  Jesus Christ calls his Church, his friends to be like him in his gentleness and love.

“Our life is love and peace and tenderness and bearing with one another and forgiving one another and not laying accusations one against one another and helping one another up with a tender hand”.

It’s very simple.  At the foot washing, Jesus hands on the manifesto for the life of the Church: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this shall everyone know that you are my disciple, if you have love one for another” (13.34-5).

Jesus gives the Holy Spirit to the disciples with these words”  “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”.

Jesus commissions Peter to the same gentle ministry he models: “Feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep”.

The vocation of the Church is to be a community of gentleness and mercy in a world which is often harsh and often violent.

We have been reminded again this week of the terrible violence inflicted on the innocent when religion is twisted by forces of evil and destruction.  This week the world witnessed terrible violence in Brussels.  This week the world remembered the genocide in Bosnia committed against Muslims over 20 years ago.  These acts of violence are renounced and condemned by all Christians, all Muslims, all Jews in the name of God as well as by all people of good will. As Christians we must commit ourselves to working for greater understanding between our faiths and communities in the name of our Saviour who washes his disciples feet.

The vocation of the Church is to be a community of mercy in a world which neglects those who have nothing.  There is a challenge in our own day to care for the displaced of the world, to welcome the refugee and to care for the stranger.  There is challenge to serve the most vulnerable in this city, through the Cathedral Archer Project and in many other ways. There is challenge to campaign and be involved in political life so that the tears in the net of Welfare in this country might be mended again.

The vocation of the Church is to be a community of gentleness in a world in which so many are hurting and broken.  Here in South Yorkshire we know a great deal now about such brokenness following the child sexual exploitation scandals.  There are many lives and many communities which need gentleness and care.

The vocation of the Church is to be a community of mercy even as we face together issues on which we might disagree one with another.  Our Church is currently wrestling with the immensely sensitive issue of human sexuality. My prayer for that conversation is we will be gentle one with another and bear with one another and help one another up with a tender hand.

The vocation of the Church is to be a community of gentleness  in our stewardship of the earth: to live gently and respectfully in creation, to be faithful disciples in our care for God’s world.

And the vocation of the Church is to be a community of gentleness and mercy in the ordinary and extraordinary details of our lives: in the way we greet one another; in the ways we offer hospitality; in the questions we ask one another; in the time we give to listening; in the friendship we extend to others; in the way we restore people to fellowship; in the way we tell others of Jesus Christ;; in our welcome of little children.  “By this shall everyone know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another”.

We are the Church.  We are called into being by Jesus Christ, who was crucified and rose again.  The gentle, risen Lord.  We are called to reflect his love in a world of violence, hurt, hunger and confusion.

If you own the name of Christian, you are called to reflect this gentle strength in all you do: in your work and in your leisure, in your actions and in your character, in your words and in your deeds.

We are called together to be like him in his gentleness: at the anointing, at the footwashing, at the cross, in the garden, in the upper room, by the lakeside.

“Our life is love and peace and tenderness and bearing with one another and forgiving one another and not laying accusations one against another and helping one another up with a tender hand”

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Steven Croft

Christ is Risen!

The Cathedral held a dawn service on Easter Day this year.  I set the alarm for 4.30 in the morning for a 5.30 start.

The service began in darkness: readings and prayers from the Old Testament looking back to creation, to the Exodus, to the prophets longing for God’s kingdom.  As dawn broke, we moved outside to the great entrance.  New fire was kindled in a brazier. We lit the new Easter candle.

Together the congregation moved into the Church proclaiming with wonder once again this profound and life changing news that Jesus Christ rose from death on Easter Day.

The Christian faith is not based on a dream or a projection or a myth but an event in history.  This event was witnessed by those who were not expecting it, unexplained by those who opposed it, written down by those who gave their lives in testimony, and attested by countless generations of Christians who have themselves encountered the risen Christ in scripture and sacrament, in prayer and fellowship.

This is the life changing, death disarming, fear destroying, mind transforming, joy bringing, grief shattering, kingdom proclaiming, history making, culture shaping truth that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day.  God offers to everyone forgiveness and new life.

But how can anyone believe in the resurrection of the dead?  Death seems so final.

St Paul uses this very simple picture in 1 Corinthians 15.  He asks us to imagine seed: the kind you plant in the ground.  Think of the pip in the apple, or a sunflower seed, or the stone in the heart of a peach.

No matter how long you look at a dried peach stone, no-one could possibly imagine that this hard, dry object could possibly change and not only change but grow and not only grow but become a whole tree, bearing leaves and flowers and fruit for years and years.

So it is with the resurrection of the dead, says Paul.  Death seems so final.  But we only see part of the picture.  A person’s life and soul and personality rests with God after death, like the DNA hidden deep in the stone of a peach.  God in his love and grace and power is able to raise them to a new and deeper and richer kind of life, life without end.

How can we know this to be true?  Because of what Christians celebrate in the fifty days of Easter.

Christ is risen.  He is risen indeed.  Alleluia.

+Steven

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Steven Croft

The Lord is Risen! Weeping, turning, witnessing

The Lord is Risen A sermon for Easter Day 20th April, 2014 John 20.1-18

It’s a privilege to welcome you today to our renewed and re-ordered Cathedral. The work is not finished yet and will go on for some months.  But it’s a magnificent symbol this Easter Day to see this ancient building made new, to see what it will be like, to celebrate resurrection in this very ancient church which has been made so wonderfully new and contemporary.  And its such a joy to have sound system which works…..

Remember as you come in prayer today that there has been a Church on this site for over a thousand years at the very centre of this city.  Down all the centuries the Church building has been knocked down and rebuilt, adapted and improve.  But through all those years the people of Sheffield have gathered here to pray to the Risen Lord Sunday by Sunday and day by day, in moments of peril and difficulty, in the crises of their lives, at the great festivals of the year.

A congregation gathered on this site in 1066, in the Wars of the Roses, in the time of Mary Tudor, during the Civil War, when Victoria came to the throne, during the Great War.  A congregation proclaimed the resurrection of Christ as we have done this Easter.

In the words of Isaiah, This house is a place of prayer for all peoples (Isaiah 56.7). It is not just a place for all people – though it is that.  But this house is a place of prayer for all peoples, especially those who do not yet know the living God.  And you are truly welcome this day.

Let’s use the Easter acclamation one more time.

The Lord is Risen. He is risen indeed.  Alleluia.

Jesus rose from the dead.  This is what we celebrate today.  This is the entire centre of our faith.  Jesus rose from the dead and his rising has reshaped history.

Every time you write the date, you are remembering how many years it was since this man lived and died and rose again: 2014.  We do not date our lives, our history does not begin from the Norman conquest, or the foundation of Rome, or the accession of the Queen, or the invention of the mobile phone.  Our history begins with Jesus.

We date our lives from the year Jesus Christ was born because of his remarkable life and ministry and death and resurrection.  We meet for worship on a Sunday to honour the fact that Jesus rose from the dead on this day of the week.  The first Christians were all devout Jews.  They kept the Sabbath, Saturday as their day of worship as the Jewish people do today.  Something remarkable happened to change their day of worship.  Christ rose from the dead.  Within a generation, the Christian day of worship became Sunday, the Lord’s day, the day he rose.

Walk through any English churchyard and you will see graves packed together.  Walk around this Cathedral and look at the monuments and plaques and burial places.  Why are they here?  People are buried here and around parish churches because Jesus rose from the dead, because of truth of his resurrection, because of the hope it brings to us of new and eternal life with God, because of his promises to those who believe.  Where else would you want to be buried but in the place where new life is proclaimed? Because he rose, death is not the end.  The shroud of death which casts its shadow over all peoples has been destroyed (Isaiah 25.7).

These are not superstitions.   Generations have believed and trusted in the resurrection of Christ in every generation on the earth.  Generations who follow us will do the same.  This faith we share has been tested in every possible way down two thousand years.

The first three hundred years of the life of the Church were years of intermittent persecution.  To profess faith in the risen Christ meant that you suffered discrimination, you could be arrested, you could be killed.  We can forget that the early witnesses whose words we read in the New Testament almost all died for their faith, often in terrible ways.  St. Paul lived most of his life in danger – yet his life and his writings are full of joy.  Why is that? Because of his faith in the risen Jesus. Death is not the end of life. There is hope, there is resurrection, there is meaning, there is a future.

Those early Christians tell us that we should not be surprised by resurrection. We can read the signs in creation. “Day and night declare to us a resurrection”, writes one of them. “The night sinks to sleep, and the day arises; the day [again] departs, and the night comes on” (Clement, First letter to the Corinthians, 24).

The seasons of the year speak of death and resurrection: “The earth receives its instruction from heaven to clothe the trees which had been stripped, to colour the flowers afresh, to spread the grass again, to reproduce the seed” (Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, 22).

The resurrection is written deep in the Scriptures.  This pattern, this event was foretold.  In the Psalms and in Isaiah, there are prophecies of suffering followed by glory (Psalm22, Isaiah 53).  There are deep patterns in the stories of Noah saved from the flood, in the Israelites saved from death in the crossing of the Red Sea, in Jonah who spent three days and nights in the belly of the fish but was given back his life, in Daniel and his friends rescued from the fire and from the mouth of lions.

There are miracles of resurrection in the Scriptures: Enoch and Elijah are snatched into heaven (Genesis 5.24, 2 Kings 2); Elijah and Elisha raise the sons of widows from the dead (1 Kings 17, 2 Kings 4); Ezekiel sees a vision of a whole army come to life again (Ezekiel 37) and of deserts made new (48).

The early Christians took this pattern of death and resurrection from the Scriptures and wove it into Christian worship.  Last night, Bishop Peter and I baptized and confirmed 41 candidates in Rotherham Minster.   It was a wonderful occasion.  All of them made for themselves the promises made at their baptism.  All were confirmed.  Eight of them were baptized at the font.

The traditional times for baptism to happen is Easter because of the pattern of death and resurrection.  We go down into the water.  Our old life dies.  We come out of the water.  We rise with Christ’s new life to live with him and for him and in him and to live for ever.  It was a powerful moment.

Today and every Sunday we celebrate the Eucharist together in this place.  In this Eucharist, in the sacrament of bread and wine, we make a living memorial of Christ’s death and resurrection and we celebrate his call to resurrection life.   We remember that Jesus is alive, that Christ is with us, as we gather in this place, that we can know him, that he lives in us his people, that he has given us His Spirit.

The pattern of resurrection is there in creation, in history, in testimony, in scripture, in sacrament, in experience, in the shaping of our world.

But that pattern begins with a real, actual, historical event, in a garden, in the darkness, as Mary Magdalene comes weeping to the tomb.  She is weeping because Jesus death was a real death, full of pain and anguish, and because Mary loves him, and she is in the chaos of confusion which grief brings.

She sees the empty tomb.  The stone is rolled away.  His body has gone.  The disciples come and see the linen wrappings and the cloth rolled up in a place by itself.  This is a resurrection not a robbery.

That resurrection is an historical event. The tomb was empty. Jesus appeared to his disciples. One writer says: “The empty tomb alone would have been a puzzle and a tragedy.  Sightings of an apparently alive Jesus by themselves would have been classified as visions or hallucinations….However an empty tomb and appearances of a living Jesus, taken together,..” present a powerful reason for faith in the resurrection[1].

Mary encounters the tomb and then she encounters Jesus.  He calls her name: Mary.  There is a turning, a returning, a change of direction, a conversion.  “She turned and said to him in Hebrew, Rabbouni! (which means my Teacher)”.  You cannot believe in the resurrection of Jesus and stay the same.  To believe means to turn, to change, to be converted.

Then in a moment, Mary moves from weeping to turning to witnessing.  Mary Magdalene becomes the apostle to the apostles.  The pattern of resurrection is even written into the story of resurrection.  Mary was the one from whom seven demons were driven out, the woman of no reputation, by tradition a camp follower.  The one whose life was worse than death, who has already been restored, is the one who carries the message of life to others.

Her story is built in John around three words in the original: weeping, turning, witnessing[2].  They describe the pattern of resurrection in every disciple: mourning: encountering reality without Christ, facing the reality of our own death or that of others; turning: encountering the risen Christ, experiencing the power of his resurrection; and witnessing: sharing with others that we have seen the Lord, that he has risen.  Weeping, turning, witnessing: the pattern of Easter.

There is no need to be afraid or shy or lacking in confidence in the heart of our faith or in proclaiming it to the world.  This is the great good news in every age and every will be while the world endures.  Christ has died.  Christ is risen.  Christ will come again.

Our Cathedral will be a sign now in this great city of the renewing power of Christian faith and of the Christian gospel and of confidence in that message in the years to come.  Thousands upon thousands of people in this city and region need to hear that great good news.

Let this Easter be the day when your own faith is rekindled and renewed; when you place your trust once again in Jesus Christ who lived and died and rose again, when you follow Mary and move from weeping to turning to witnessing to his love. Let this Easter be the day when the Church in this places embraces a proper confidence in the gospel, to live it and proclaim it in this city and this diocese now and for many years to come.

The Lord is Risen. He is risen indeed.  Alleluia.

[1] N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, pp. 686-7

[2] See Sandra M. Shneiders, Written that you may believe, Encountering Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, pp. 211-223

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Steven Croft
,

The Lord is Risen! Weeping, turning, witnessing

The Lord is Risen
A sermon for Easter Day
20th April, 2014
John 20.1-18

It’s a privilege to welcome you today to our renewed and re-ordered Cathedral. The work is not finished yet and will go on for some months. But it’s a magnificent symbol this Easter Day to see this ancient building made new, to see what it will be like, to celebrate resurrection in this very ancient church which has been made so wonderfully new and contemporary. And its such a joy to have sound system which works…..

Remember as you come in prayer today that there has been a Church on this site for over a thousand years at the very centre of this city. Down all the centuries the Church building has been knocked down and rebuilt, adapted and improve. But through all those years the people of Sheffield have gathered here to pray to the Risen Lord Sunday by Sunday and day by day, in moments of peril and difficulty, in the crises of their lives, at the great festivals of the year.

A congregation gathered on this site in 1066, in the Wars of the Roses, in the time of Mary Tudor, during the Civil War, when Victoria came to the throne, during the Great War. A congregation proclaimed the resurrection of Christ as we have done this Easter.

In the words of Isaiah, This house is a place of prayer for all peoples (Isaiah 56.7). It is not just a place for all people – though it is that. But this house is a place of prayer for all peoples, especially those who do not yet know the living God. And you are truly welcome this day.

Let’s use the Easter acclamation one more time.

The Lord is Risen.
He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Jesus rose from the dead. This is what we celebrate today. This is the entire centre of our faith. Jesus rose from the dead and his rising has reshaped history.

Every time you write the date, you are remembering how many years it was since this man lived and died and rose again: 2014. We do not date our lives, our history does not begin from the Norman conquest, or the foundation of Rome, or the accession of the Queen, or the invention of the mobile phone. Our history begins with Jesus.

We date our lives from the year Jesus Christ was born because of his remarkable life and ministry and death and resurrection. We meet for worship on a Sunday to honour the fact that Jesus rose from the dead on this day of the week. The first Christians were all devout Jews. They kept the Sabbath, Saturday as their day of worship as the Jewish people do today. Something remarkable happened to change their day of worship. Christ rose from the dead. Within a generation, the Christian day of worship became Sunday, the Lord’s day, the day he rose.

Walk through any English churchyard and you will see graves packed together. Walk around this Cathedral and look at the monuments and plaques and burial places. Why are they here? People are buried here and around parish churches because Jesus rose from the dead, because of truth of his resurrection, because of the hope it brings to us of new and eternal life with God, because of his promises to those who believe. Where else would you want to be buried but in the place where new life is proclaimed? Because he rose, death is not the end. The shroud of death which casts its shadow over all peoples has been destroyed (Isaiah 25.7).

These are not superstitions. Generations have believed and trusted in the resurrection of Christ in every generation on the earth. Generations who follow us will do the same. This faith we share has been tested in every possible way down two thousand years.

The first three hundred years of the life of the Church were years of intermittent persecution. To profess faith in the risen Christ meant that you suffered discrimination, you could be arrested, you could be killed. We can forget that the early witnesses whose words we read in the New Testament almost all died for their faith, often in terrible ways. St. Paul lived most of his life in danger – yet his life and his writings are full of joy. Why is that? Because of his faith in the risen Jesus. Death is not the end of life. There is hope, there is resurrection, there is meaning, there is a future.

Those early Christians tell us that we should not be surprised by resurrection. We can read the signs in creation. “Day and night declare to us a resurrection”, writes one of them. “The night sinks to sleep, and the day arises; the day [again] departs, and the night comes on” (Clement, First letter to the Corinthians, 24).

The seasons of the year speak of death and resurrection: “The earth receives its instruction from heaven to clothe the trees which had been stripped, to colour the flowers afresh, to spread the grass again, to reproduce the seed” (Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, 22).

The resurrection is written deep in the Scriptures. This pattern, this event was foretold. In the Psalms and in Isaiah, there are prophecies of suffering followed by glory (Psalm22, Isaiah 53). There are deep patterns in the stories of Noah saved from the flood, in the Israelites saved from death in the crossing of the Red Sea, in Jonah who spent three days and nights in the belly of the fish but was given back his life, in Daniel and his friends rescued from the fire and from the mouth of lions.

There are miracles of resurrection in the Scriptures: Enoch and Elijah are snatched into heaven (Genesis 5.24, 2 Kings 2); Elijah and Elisha raise the sons of widows from the dead (1 Kings 17, 2 Kings 4); Ezekiel sees a vision of a whole army come to life again (Ezekiel 37) and of deserts made new (48).

The early Christians took this pattern of death and resurrection from the Scriptures and wove it into Christian worship. Last night, Bishop Peter and I baptized and confirmed 41 candidates in Rotherham Minster. It was a wonderful occasion. All of them made for themselves the promises made at their baptism. All were confirmed. Eight of them were baptized at the font.

The traditional times for baptism to happen is Easter because of the pattern of death and resurrection. We go down into the water. Our old life dies. We come out of the water. We rise with Christ’s new life to live with him and for him and in him and to live for ever. It was a powerful moment.

Today and every Sunday we celebrate the Eucharist together in this place. In this Eucharist, in the sacrament of bread and wine, we make a living memorial of Christ’s death and resurrection and we celebrate his call to resurrection life. We remember that Jesus is alive, that Christ is with us, as we gather in this place, that we can know him, that he lives in us his people, that he has given us His Spirit.

The pattern of resurrection is there in creation, in history, in testimony, in scripture, in sacrament, in experience, in the shaping of our world.

But that pattern begins with a real, actual, historical event, in a garden, in the darkness, as Mary Magdalene comes weeping to the tomb. She is weeping because Jesus death was a real death, full of pain and anguish, and because Mary loves him, and she is in the chaos of confusion which grief brings.

She sees the empty tomb. The stone is rolled away. His body has gone. The disciples come and see the linen wrappings and the cloth rolled up in a place by itself. This is a resurrection not a robbery.

That resurrection is an historical event. The tomb was empty. Jesus appeared to his disciples. One writer says: “The empty tomb alone would have been a puzzle and a tragedy. Sightings of an apparently alive Jesus by themselves would have been classified as visions or hallucinations….However an empty tomb and appearances of a living Jesus, taken together,..” present a powerful reason for faith in the resurrection.

Mary encounters the tomb and then she encounters Jesus. He calls her name: Mary. There is a turning, a returning, a change of direction, a conversion. “She turned and said to him in Hebrew, Rabbouni! (which means my Teacher)”. You cannot believe in the resurrection of Jesus and stay the same. To believe means to turn, to change, to be converted.

Then in a moment, Mary moves from weeping to turning to witnessing. Mary Magdalene becomes the apostle to the apostles. The pattern of resurrection is even written into the story of resurrection. Mary was the one from whom seven demons were driven out, the woman of no reputation, by tradition a camp follower. The one whose life was worse than death, who has already been restored, is the one who carries the message of life to others.

Her story is built in John around three words in the original: weeping, turning, witnessing. They describe the pattern of resurrection in every disciple: mourning: encountering reality without Christ, facing the reality of our own death or that of others; turning: encountering the risen Christ, experiencing the power of his resurrection; and witnessing: sharing with others that we have seen the Lord, that he has risen. Weeping, turning, witnessing: the pattern of Easter.

There is no need to be afraid or shy or lacking in confidence in the heart of our faith or in proclaiming it to the world. This is the great good news in every age and every will be while the world endures. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

Our Cathedral will be a sign now in this great city of the renewing power of Christian faith and of the Christian gospel and of confidence in that message in the years to come. Thousands upon thousands of people in this city and region need to hear that great good news.

Let this Easter be the day when your own faith is rekindled and renewed; when you place your trust once again in Jesus Christ who lived and died and rose again, when you follow Mary and move from weeping to turning to witnessing to his love. Let this Easter be the day when the Church in this places embraces a proper confidence in the gospel, to live it and proclaim it in this city and this diocese now and for many years to come.

The Lord is Risen.
He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

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